Care in creative work: exploring the ethics and aesthetics of care through arts-based methods

Abstract

This article investigates creative work from an ex-centric perspective, bringing insights from work experiences in the Ghanaian creative industries to bear on the understanding of creative work as a relational labour of care and caring. We argue that the ethics and aesthetics of care in creative work can best be captured and appreciated through the use of innovative arts-based methodologies that afford researchers the opportunity to explore care-fully the relational aspects of creative work. Accordingly, we base our findings on insights generated from the organisation of and participation in an artistic research workshop in Ghana. We show that artistic workshops themselves constitute a caring and socially useful form of empirical research that upholds the principles of “creative justice” by fostering more respectful, attentive, and affective relationships among research participants and between researchers and participants.